Table of Contents

This study is provided by ICPSR.
ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis
for a diverse and expanding social science research community.

Electoral Data for Counties in the United States: Presidential and Congressional Races, 1840-1972 (ICPSR 8611)

Principal Investigator(s):Clubb, Jerome M., University of Michigan; Flanigan, William H., University of Minnesota; Zingale, Nancy H., College of St. Thomas

Summary:

This collection contains county-level returns for elections
to the United States presidency and to the United States House of
Representatives for the years 1840 to 1972. The variables for the
presidential vote include the percentages of ballots cast for major
and "significant" minor party candidates (with residual votes
collapsed into an "other" category), total numbers of votes for all
candidates in an election, and estimates of voter turnout in the
presidential elections. T... (more info)

This collection contains county-level returns for elections
to the United States presidency and to the United States House of
Representatives for the years 1840 to 1972. The variables for the
presidential vote include the percentages of ballots cast for major
and "significant" minor party candidates (with residual votes
collapsed into an "other" category), total numbers of votes for all
candidates in an election, and estimates of voter turnout in the
presidential elections. There are similar variables for the
congressional vote except that returns are reported for parties and
not for candidates. Congressional district numbers are also reported
for each county for every election.

Access Notes

These data are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions. Because you are not
logged in, we cannot verify that you
will be able to download these data.

Dataset(s)

Study Description

Citation

Clubb, Jerome M., William H. Flanigan, and Nancy H. Zingale. Electoral Data for Counties in the United States: Presidential and Congressional Races, 1840-1972. ICPSR08611-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-11-13. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08611.v1

Universe:
Population of United States voters in presidential and
congressional elections, 1840-1972.

Data Types:
aggregate data

Data Collection Notes:

The variable V3 (COUNTY IDENTIFICATION NO) is not
necessarily equivalent to the FIPS code for a given county.

Some
of the data in this collection were compiled from ICPSR 0003. Since
the time of this data collection's first release, ICPSR 0003 has been
updated and is available as ICPSR 2896 (HISTORICAL, DEMOGRAPHIC,
ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL DATA: THE UNITED STATES, 1790-2000). Users of the
current data collection should check ICPSR 2896 for specific
information about updates that may affect the analysis of the data in
this collection.

Methodology

Data Source:

United States Historical Election Returns, 1788-1978
(ICPSR 0001)

Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The
United States, 1790-1970 (ICPSR 2896)

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1987-01-12

Version History:

2006-11-13 The codebook has been updated to reflect
revisions made to the processing notes, which now include an
explanation for computing partisan and voter turnout percentages.

2005-01-27 A processor's note has been added to the
codebook to explain an apparent discrepancy between the 'V3 -- COUNTY
IDENTIFICATION NO' variable and FIPS, which are in fact independent of
one another. Also, the codebook has been converted to PDF form.